Dionysus on a Bike

Hebrews 6:13-20 – 7/17/2026

Jesus is our forerunner in that he makes possible a way of relating to God that was impossible otherwise. This is not an idea I was exposed to in my Protestant contexts growing up, either the Methodist Church of my childhood or the Evangelical, non-denominational Calvinist church of my misspent youth. Jesus as forerunner includes the idea of the transformation of fallen humanity to communion with the divine. Jesus, as both fully God and fully human, instituted another way to be divine and another way to be human, both of which were in contradiction to what these categories were supposed to mean before the incarnation of this God-man.

Eastern Christians will call what Jesus makes possible as our forerunner, theosis, or in Latinized Western terms, divinization. Just as Christ is the humbling of God, Christ is also the glorification of humans, lifting them up beyond the “merely” human to the realm of the one God. Protestants recoil at the idea of human beings becoming like God because it somehow degrades or demotes what it is to be divine. This objection to the idea of theosis points to its primary strength. God has already degrade God’s self in the incarnation. This degradation was done for the purpose of lifting humans up to the divine. It’s true that this degrades God, but that is one of the key elements of the incarnation of Christ, the humbling of God.

The Protestants I was exposed to held that what Christ does as our forerunner and high priest is prepare the way for us to be in God’s presence, not to become like God ourselves. However, what the Protestant theologian misses is that contact with God cannot help but change the one who is in contact. To be in the presence of the divine is to become like God oneself.

What does it mean for us to become divine in this way? I must admit that I am not certain. The Nietzschean in me both cringes and has my interest piqued when I consider the idea of humanity overcoming itself, through a transformative experience. Again, I repeat that I am not certain what this means. In order to get clear on what it means, one must have a concept of what it is to be God and what it is to be human, both of which are open questions that are not at all straightforward to answer. I’ll leave those questions open here, but continue to meditate on the idea of a God humbled as a forerunner for humans to be changed into something greater than what they were before that encounter.

Revised Common Lectionary Readings for 7/17/2026:
Isaiah 44:9-17
Hebrews 6:13-20
Psalm 86:11-17

Reflections of a Dionysian Lutheran, comments on the daily readings of the Revised Common Lectionary by Justin Marquis